


Why Not?

by redpetra



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, F/M, Pining, Silent Knight - Freeform, this is not necessarily a happy story my friends, unhealthy relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-16 05:25:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10564506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redpetra/pseuds/redpetra
Summary: Inspired by an AU concept by jauneisms.tumblr.comJaune without Pyrrha needs support. Neo without Roman needs direction. Both need a reason to carry on. Why not each other?(AU v4 setting)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by jauneisms.tumblr.com, who said: 
> 
> "hey I got an au where jaune and neo wind up together because jaune treats her half decently (roman did not set particularly high standards) and neo can look like pyrrha and they're both terrified of being without the one they lost"
> 
> and was fine with me taking that idea and running with it. The result is this: a rather artsy examination of a relationship doomed to destroy both parties.

They come across her in the forests around Vale. She's wandering, aimless - her clothes are dirty and her parasol torn - and he immediately feels sorry for her. Ruby insists she's evil, that she can't be trusted.  “She helped Cinder! And Roman!” Ruby expects him to hate her, but he sees her reaction to the second name and he thinks he understands her. 

He puts his foot down, as team leader, and their foursome becomes a group of five.

-

She doesn't know what happened to Roman until Ruby mentions it on their second day. She collapses to the ground and lets out a wail of agony that surprises them all. It takes all four of them to get her moving again, and she's despondent for the rest of the day, her eyes solid black instead of their typical dual-tones. That night, when he gets up to train, he notices that she's gone.

He finds her hours later, watching the sunrise on the precarious edge of a staggeringly tall cliffside. He manages to talk her down while his teammates watch on.

Ruby doesn't complain about her presence again.

-

He doesn't think she sleeps. When he gets up to train through the night, she's usually sitting awake by the remains of their fire. She starts following him when he goes off on his own, sitting in silence and watching as he follows his recording of Pyrrha.

His Aura is getting stronger by the day, but it doesn't help the pain.

-

On the third day of this silent companionship, he looks up to see the ghost of Pyrrha watching him. The shape of her face is wrong, and she's far too short, but her eyes gleam like vibrant emeralds and her hair cascades in a red waterfall down her back.

He quits his training for the night, grabbing his scroll and leaving her behind.

-

She comes back the next night, and she spends it staring at the scroll instead of him. He tries not to notice as she adjusts the colour of her hair, as she changes her outfit to match the video. She seems to be taking care not to disturb him, but her very presence is a distraction.

When he manages to fall asleep, Pyrrha’s ghost haunts him even more than usual.

-

She's waiting for him when he wanders off the following night. He doesn't ask how she knew where he would go to train, doesn't ask why she's standing there, broken parasol in hand, looking like Pyrrha. He sets up his scroll but she puts it face down and looks at him through piercing green eyes.

She beats him soundly that first night, and it seems to take no effort at all.

-

She fights like Pyrrha - all agility and grace - and she pushes him just as hard as Pyrrha ever had. If it weren't for the height difference and her ever-present smirk, he could almost pretend that his partner was there, parrying his every blow.

It becomes a nightly ritual, and after a week he stops bringing his scroll along at all.

-

She never wear Pyrrha's colours during the day. He doesn't know why and he doesn't ask. She's a vastly different creature with the group than she is when they're alone, and he finds himself watching her closely as they carve their way across Anima, trying to figure her out. Their ritual seems like a special secret between them, but he can't get her multi-coloured form to express any form of partiality.

He begins to think he's dreaming it, that he's imagining their nights together.

-

He finally asks her if she sleeps, one night while they're resting between bouts. She answers with a shrug, the motion calculatedly casual. It tell him everything he needs to know; he pulls her to him, and her body feels breakable, fragile, in his arms. He tells her that he gets the nightmares, too - that every night he sees Pyrrha leave him, that his brain keeps finding new and creative ways to make him fail.

He feels her shaking, feels wetness on his neck. She hasn't shown weakness like this since she discovered what happened to Roman. He holds her as she cries, and when she finally pulls away her eyes are pink and brown, not green.

They don't train any more that night.

-

He starts learning her, piece by piece, and it starts with her eyes. He knows she can change them at will, but they also change colours involuntarily. They’re usually pink and brown, but they swap positions depending on her specific mood; they go white when she’s scared, worried, or panicked; black when she’s grieving. He’s caught sight of her black eyes a few times since the first, when she thinks he’s not looking. 

She’s not as solid as she appears, he knows, but her eyes never falter when she makes them green.

-

She proves herself a valuable asset in battle, time and time again. He’s amazed by her speed, her elegance, and the sheer  _ joy _ she takes in a fight. She finds her place as the distraction, her semblance working overtime to confuse and distract the Grimm. She keeps herself cool and calm: every motion planned, every step measured. She takes to his orders quickly and easily, and soon starts to anticipate them, always in place even before he needs her to be.

If the others notice the shift, the connection that’s forming, they don’t mention it.

-

“Stop fighting like her,” he tells her one night. She freezes, her parasol inches from his throat, and her eyes go wide. “I know how you fight, and I know that you’re holding back and… copying her style.” She looks surprised, maybe impressed that he’s realized what she’s been doing. “I won’t get better if you don’t push me.” She tilts her head at him, red hair and green eyes catching the moonlight. He swallows, resets his stance.

She disarms him in a single move, and he can’t remember ever feeling more dejected.

-

She starts wearing her hair in a ponytail, even during the day. The trio of colours twist and twirl around each other, and it bounces when she walks. He finds himself staring at it, wishing it were red; he’s never seen her red hair in the sunlight. She tends to stay separate from the rest of the group until a fight breaks out, so it’s obvious to everyone that he’s staring. Nora and Ren seem unconcerned, but Ruby tracks them both with narrowed eyes.

Ruby still doesn’t trust her, and it hurts him to see his friend so unlike herself.

-

The turning point comes when they stumble upon a nest of Taijitu, a writhing mass of Grimm flesh that hisses and shrieks and sputters in a nightmarish crater. The ground explodes around them and Ruby nearly falls into the hungry mouths below, saved only by quick action on Ren’s part. They gather around the edge of the crater as he tries to strategize, but the time it takes for him to make a plan is enough for it all to fall apart. The King of the nest aims for Nora with vicious teeth, and no one can move fast enough to intervene. But glass shatters and Nora shouts in surprise, and pure white Aura is cracking between powerful jaws. They all attack without thinking, without planning, but all he can see is blood on her jacket, blood in her hair.

He likes it when her hair is red, but not like this.

-

He stays at her side for the next few days, effectively halting their trek towards Mistral. Nora spends a good portion of the time sitting with him, chattering in a desperate attempt to ease her own guilt. Ruby and Ren maintain the camp, make them food, help him change her bandages. She wakes up on the second day, sits up on the third. She doesn't seem to be in any pain, though he wonders how much she's hiding. He wonders if it's for his sake.

He hears Ruby whisper thanks and apologies to her, and knows they're a real team now.

-

He leaves her sleeping soundly when he goes to train, so he nearly screams when she appears before him. He tries to talk her out of it but it's like reasoning with a tree. Red hair falls and green eyes blink, and for once she's not wearing her trademark smirk. She's still in pain and it makes her slower, to the point where he almost lands a blow.

He makes her stop when he sees blood through her bandages.

-

He's waking up a few nights later when he hears it - rough, ragged breathing punctuated by whimpers. He thinks she's hurting, that their training has finally gone too far, but when he rushes to her side he finds her asleep. Her face is contorted, her hands gripping her sleeping bag, tears making tracks down her cheeks. She’s trying to speak in her sleep, her mouth contorted strangely. He picks her up and carries her to his sleeping bag. She wakes up for long enough to change her colours before curling into his embrace.

He loses two different Pyrrhas in his dream that night.

-

While his presence seems to ease her nightmares, hers makes his worse. Both Pyrrhas take starring roles: one dies because he’s not fast enough, the other dies trying to protect him. The ghosts start following him in daylight hours; sometimes he sees her out of the corner of his eye and mistakes her for Pyrrha, even though the colours don’t match. They’re mixing and muddling with each other in his head, but he can’t bear to send her away when she crawls into his sleeping bag with him after training. Night after night he loses them both, waking in cold sweats with his hands buried in red hair, her skin flush against his.

She always leaves before the others wake, and he’s convinced they still don’t know what she’s been doing.

-

He helps her fix her parasol after Ren finds a sewing kit buried at the bottom of his bag. Her fingers are quick and nimble but she’s impatient, unwilling to take her time. He ends up pushing her away when she starts bleeding over the lace, her fingers leaking from dozens of tiny holes. He can’t help but laugh when she pouts, and she responds by knocking him over with his own shield. Everyone laughs, and when he meets her eyes she blinks them briefly green, so quickly he can’t be sure he’s not projecting.

Ruby buys her a notebook in the next village they find, and they can finally hear her.

-

She giggles once when Nora is on one of her rants, and the whole group stops to stare at her. She walks with them now, not ahead or behind, and she suddenly freezes under the weight of their attention. She scrawls a message down and holds it up:  _ I like Nora’s idea better. _ “See?” Nora punches Ren in the shoulder. “Neo’s on board with team JNNRR!” Ren rolls his eyes, Ruby laughs, and he watches her store the notebook. She keeps it in her pocket, easily accessible, so that she can talk to them whenever she needs to.

He can’t figure out why this doesn’t make him happy.

-

She figures it out, when he finally manages to knock her parasol from her hands in one of their nightly bouts. Grinning, she lets them take a break and flops onto the ground beside him. He watches her write, eyeing the way her red hair swings, the way the jewels hanging from her circlet sway with every movement.  _ You liked it better when it was just the two of us _ . He meets her eyes, Pyrrha’s vibrant green, and he can’t deny it. She nods, understanding, and is in the process of writing another message when he covers the notebook with one hand and pulls her against him.

Their lips meet, and she is all saccharine softness, gentle touches and sweetness. He pushes her into the ground, taking everything she has to offer, hungry and desperate to make up for past mistakes. When he pulls away, he breathes her name, a yearning prayer in the silence between them. But the second kiss never comes; she pushes him away and her eyes are white. She gathers her crinkled notebook, her fallen parasol, and he catches a glimpse of black eyes as she runs from the clearing.

It takes him nearly ten minutes to realize which name escaped his lips.

-

She isn’t with the group when he wakes, and she doesn’t appear before they move out. The others want to wait for her but he urges them to press on. They question him, demand his reasoning, but he ignores them all and sticks to his path. The day passes in near silence, and even Nora’s unshakable optimism can’t brighten the mood. He hopes she’ll show up when he trains that night, but after waiting an hour he has to accept that she’s gone. He collects his scroll and plays his recording of Pyrrha, over and over again.

It’s easy for him now, too easy, and he cries when he realizes that he’s lost them both.

-

A week passes without her. They’ve stopped asking where she’s gone, why he left without her, but he can feel their looks on his back as he leads the way forward. He doesn’t train anymore, but he still dreams. Now, however, instead of trying to protect him, the second Pyrrha kills him every night. She finds more and more violent ways to do it, and she takes vicious pleasure in making him bleed while the other - taller, sweeter, kinder - Pyrrha screams for her to stop.

It’s a marked improvement over the old nightmares.

-

A Goliath appears in a clearing and they ready for the attack. He comes up with a plan in seconds and sets them all in motion. Ruby charges at the beast, aiming for its legs to shake its balance. She barrels right through it, the glass image shattering over her, and she lets out a whoop of celebratory surprise. On a nearby tree they find a page from her notebook, ripped out and pinned into the truck with a sharpened rock.  _ Goliath herd 20 m west. Avoid. _ They take the advice and find a new way around. They stay awake late that night, talking about her. He listens but doesn’t contribute, lost in images of her alone.

She doesn’t kill him that night; instead, she’s mauled to death by Grimm while the other Pyrrha holds him back.

-

Weeks pass, and they find notes almost every other day. She’s moving ahead of them, clearing the path, giving them advice, and he hates it. He wants her back, wants to look over and see her walking with a bounce in her step. He misses her in both her forms. The others are worried, too; mostly Nora, who babbles on and on about what could happen to her while she’s off on her own. He does his best to tune this out - he doesn’t need any more help imagining what they may come across one of these days.

“She can handle herself,” Ruby says encouragingly, and he repeats it as a mantra.

-

She slips into his sleeping bag and he wakes up immediately. His hands are all over her, down her back and up her legs and in her hair. He checks for injuries and finds nothing but the scars from the Taijitu, over a month old now. She smiles at his concern, and he finally notices that she’s in Pyrrha’s colours again. “You don’t have to -” he begins, but she silences him with a kiss that sears the words right out of him. She holds up a note, one that has been crumpled up and rewritten time and time again.

_ I can be Pyrrha if you promise not to leave me. _

-

Her skin is soft, her lithe body tender and responsive. He whispers the wrong name into her neck, her chest, her hair, and she accepts it like a brand. She lets out tiny whimpers, her hands finding his weak points while he searches for hers. She’s breathless and open to him, a red-headed angel giving him everything. He worships her body but rejects her soul, kissing his lost love into hidden places and marking her as his consolation prize. He makes promises he can’t keep, declarations that trip falsely into the darkness.

She cries herself to sleep, and he doesn’t know how to fix it.

-

“How can you do this?” he asks later. She tilts her head, the question in her eyes. “I don’t love you.” It’s blunt and cruel, but her expression doesn’t falter. “I  _ can’t _ love you. I couldn’t even love  _ her _ in time to save her. You devote yourself entirely, all of you, and I’ve done nothing to deserve it. Isn’t this killing you?” She nods, a tiny smile twisting her lips. “Then why?” He’s demanding, hands on her shoulders, eyes boring into hers. “Why me? Why are you doing this?” She’s enigmatic and unresponsive, and he gives up after he can’t bear to stare into Pyrrha’s eyes any longer.

Later, she presses the note into his hands.

_ Why not? _

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you've enjoyed yourself.
> 
> I certainly have.


End file.
